Cuba Foreign Aid and Debt


Cuba's U.S. sourced financial aid flows have undergone great shifts over the past years. In 2005, they netted roughly 6 million, in 2014 they netted roughly 14 million, and in 2018, they netted roughly 12 million.  The low value in 2015 is due in part to a large debt repayment of around 2 million. In each of these years, the vast majority of these funds went towards governance and humanitarian efforts. In 2018, ~11 million of the ~12 million from the U.S. went to these areas (U.S. Foreign Aid by Country). This highlights the fact that Cuba is still very much in a development stage. Cuba has also sourced aid from other countries. In forgiven and cancelled debt alone, the amount of aid that Cuba has received is significant. Between 2011 and 2014, Mexico, Japan, China, and Russia wrote off a combined 40 billion in debt as a loss (Rapoza). Some if this is connected to times near the Cold War, but Cuba is in such a negative situation fiscally that the countries don't see the debt as repayable. Cuba, in recent years, has even turned to rationing as their GDP growth slows (Rapoza). For further perspective, China wrote off roughly $10 billion in debt in the past 18 years. Of that $10 billion, $5 billion was Cuba's debt. This is very significant, as despite these high levels of debt forgiveness and foreign aid, Cuba is still very much struggling. This also highlights internal struggles with their political/governing system. It's not entirely clear where all of the foreign aid went, as vast majority given in the times of Castro didn't have much recording (Rapoza). However, as mentioned earlier, with the large portion of debt contributed to humanitarian efforts, it seems that this contribution helped with the increase in Cuba's economic development (discussed in previous blogs), despite the slow growth.


Works Cited
Rapaoza, Kenneth. “China Has Forgiven Nearly $10 Billion In Debt. Cuba Accounts For Over 
     Half.” Forbes, Forbes, 29 May 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/05/29/china-has-             forgiven-nearly-10-billion-in-debt-cuba-accounts-for-over-half/#5c22dc40615b.

 “U.S. Foreign Aid by Country.” USAID From The American People, USAID Data Services, 
     explorer.usaid.gov/cd/CUB?fiscal_year=2018&measure=Obligations.




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